One of the most frequent ways to breathe new life into a brand from the past is to start from the brand’s roots by looking at its most important models for inspiration. But how to proceed when the models do not exist? For Italdesign, the challenge of designing the Alpha 5, the electric coupé presented at Pebble Beach – complete design story in the next issue of Auto&Design (no. 257) – was even more demanding: “The only models we could refer to were the DMC-12 designed by Giugiaro in 1981 and the DMC-24, a four-door that never existed but has a strong connection with the Alpha5,” says Carsten Monnerjan, head of design at Italdesign from 2019.
So how could we recreate 40 years of the brand’s history to create a new model that was not overly linked to the only two cars designed by DeLorean? “We decided to write the history of this historic brand, imagining the models it could have made during the time it was not in business,” Monnerjan continues. This is how Alpha2, 3 and 4 were born, concept cars (a 1:4 scale model was also made) that tell a story that never actually existed. The Alpha2 fully embodies the style, fashions and conventions of the 1990s: coupe body, two seats, soft lines and a powerful eight-cylinder petrol engine to make it hurtle across American roads (and beyond).
The arrival of the new millennium brought unprecedented forms and requirements such as the search for sustainability, greater attention to environmental issues and electric propulsion, imagining solutions that today can be found in some production cars. Thus was born the Alpha3, a four-door 100% electric car designed following the dictates of aerodynamics in search of maximum efficiency. The car looks like a flagship and one of the central themes of the project is maximum passenger comfort.
Ten years later it was time for the Alpha4, which according to the dictates of the market and styling trends (which continue to this day) could only be an SUV. Italdesign chose a square, imposing body for the Alpha4, and to mark its advance on the times, a characteristic feature of the DeLorean brand, it opted for hydrogen propulsion. At the heart of the project are zero tailpipe emissions but also sustainable materials.
And the future? DeLorean’s tomorrow is called the Alpha 5, Alpha 5 Plasmatail (its shooting brake variant) and Omega, a concept car for an electric crossover whose volumes seem to be moulded by the wind, designed to take on any terrain in total agility to race on the roads of the future.
